Alpha Build Of Ice Cream Sandwich Available For Motorola OG DROID

CyanogenMod might have officially killed CM support for the OG DROID, but that small fact is not going to stop the good people over at XDA from bringing the newest CM9 to the old iconic device. A pre-Alpha Ice Cream Sandwich build has been made available for flashing by any and all brave testers willing to give it a try. This is not daily driver material. This is for people who are experienced with making backups, wiping your device numerous times, and have some extra time to test things. For the rest of us, we can just sit back and know that people are working hard to bring us ICS to the OG.

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Once i installed, when the keyboard is closed the screen is in landscape but when i open the keyboard the screen then goes to portrait… any suggestions or is this just a bug?

Anonymous

I will be putting ICS on my OG Droid. O YES I WILL BE.

…and I love the nexus!

Manjyot281

This phone is legendary!! I’ll never get rid of mine. I’ll probably buff out one or two scratches it has and put it in a glass case. Motorola still sucks tho :/

AC

Has anyone tried this out on their OG yet? I just retired mine when i got the GNex and am now attempting to put a custom ROM on it for the first time while I learn about the whole rooting/flashing thing. Is getting this version of ICS to work on an OG really that difficult? Or can a first timer get it to work?

Anonymous

Man it really is smooth. I really hope there is a decent daily driver version of ICS in the next couple of days. What a way to put my Droid into retirement.

TLStroeder

Ok, I am impressed. The fact that it can be loaded and RUN (Albeit slowly and with a number of broken apps) on my OG makes me speechless!. I lurk in the background an continue to be amazed at what you guys here at XDA do. While I have a Droid RAZR now (Rooted of course!) I will continue to see what CM9 can do to the Old Girl. Nice Job to all you folks that do this for fun and entertainment. I Bask in your magnificence!

go to the forum and download the newest one the update 1 link here is the old one

Trevor-kai Craig

Ahhhh, I love the Droid-Life Community.

Anonymous

It’s definitely good news, BUT unless it is supremely optimized, or the eye candy dialed down multitasking is going to be out of question, my poor OG droid already struggles to do so with CM 7.1 even when I try to keep everything as simple as possible.
Still, LONG LIVE OG Droid!!

Anonymous

If the Nexus didn’t come out, alot of us would be flashing this, and when I mean us, I mean the founding members of Droid Life.

CM7 didn’t work well on mine but PE and Bugless Beast worked very well as far as GB goes

Bear0013

This is awesome! …..the that never dies!…the og DROID will probly be worth money one day being it was such a big game changer…….to bad I don’t have mine anymore I have a dx …just waiting for kellex to give the full review on my galaxy nexus baby

I loved my OG but come on, why are people wasting time on a phone that had virtually no app memory and so little RAM?

It was a great phone in its time but its time to move on. Get a working ICS on the Bionic!!!!!

J Dub

Tell Motorola to F the carriers and unlock the bootloader on the Bionic like they said they were going to do. You’ll get your ICS then. Until then just sit there and ask yourself why you bought a locked bootloader, slow to get updates, horrible skin’d device.

They do quick bug fixes, but as far as OS updates they’re pretty damn slow. They already said it would be at least 6 months before ICS is on their high end devices. Unless your definition of “slow” is longer than half a year that is…

emdubs

locked bootloader = slow. you are waiting on them to do the updates for you… rather them creating them yourself. you would have ICS already installed otherwise.

Anonymous

Nice to see the OG still get some love

Anonymous

Sweet! My wait for an upgrade is getting so much better!

Anonymous

This made me cry a little. The OG is def a god. Im gonna setup a shrine for mine.

I just realized something…when I read your comment (not out loud of course) my brain automatically read it in Bender’s voice.

Brian Walls

Awesome.

Anonymous

First, this story just affirms my decision to get the Nexus. The reason developer support remains on the OG after two years is because of the unlocked bootloader. I imagine the same will hold true with the Nexus.
Second, I’m super excited to try this on my OG. I used mine for the full two years and although I was happy to get the Nexus it was somewhat bittersweet saying goodbye to my Droid. Mine still runs like a champ and I feel like I need to give it some ICS love as a reward for all its hard work.

Anonymous

Exactly.

Sure, better devices than the Galaxy Nexus will be out in two to three months.But better dev support? You won’t see that until the Nexus 4 late next year.

Anonymous

Is update 1 not a mirror? It is a smaller file.

Anonymous

It’s not a mirror. It’s an updated build. Check out XDA for correct information. I believe the bottom of page 3 is the link to the updated port. Following that is a list of fixes.

Anonymous

It’s weird that it is significantly smaller

Anonymous

Sorry that I cannot provide you any other information. I would suggest checking out the source link to be sure. I suppose that it’s possible that the dev created an “update” patch for the rom he originally released. Which would mean you need the original file as well as the update file.

I haven’t fully tried it out yet. I’m at work patiently awaiting the end of the day so that I can.

Mine is playing holiday music on my front lawn syned with my holiday lights. Streaming a Christmas radio station via Tune Up.

TC Infantino

Since I got the Rezound, my OG was doing music server duty in my car. Once I decided that I was going to keep the Rezound and not trade it in on the G-Nex I purchased the car dock for the Rezound and retired the OG to alarm clock duty. It has been relaxing on my nightstand telling me the time and the current weather. I am sure it is happy since it doesn’t have to worry about being overclocked and heating up anymore, just enjoying retirement. Actually, it’s kind of funny, the OG does in a way act like a retired old man, only worried about the weather and the time, and getting up at the same time every day. lol

Bryan James

My savings for a Nexus were wiped out due to a family emergency so it will likely be 2 months before I can get one, might try thing on my OG in the mean time just to feel like I have something new.

Now if they’d just get someone working on that for the Droid Charge. 🙁

Anonymous

I was just thinking the same thing. Mine is still a wifi device that I use as my bedside clock. Now it gets to do all that plus run ICS.

J Dub

That’s what I love about the OG. It’s the first phone that even in retirement is good for something. So what if you don’t have cell service. You can still use it as an awesome wifi Android device to stream music, browse the net, or read books on. Heck, it would make a great gift to someone who doesn’t have a smartphone, but would like to experience one without the price.

Flyinion

Haha I’m thinking the same thing. Might have to charge her back up and try this out. The alarm clock thing is a good idea though too. Just restore Gentle Alarm from the titanium backup that’s on it (if I wipe and try ICS) and leave it in airplane mode. I have the dock for the OG, but don’t yet have one for my GN since apparently the really good one is not available yet.

That is so damn cool. I have a G-Nex now but I think I’ll flash this to my trusty D1 when I get home.

Dominick DeVito

where the heck is the droid 4, guess december 22nd isnt happening

Anonymous

Just get a Nexus. You’ll thank me when you do.

Dominick DeVito

i would but i need a keyboard i text all day long

Chudilo

I thought that until I played with the keyboard on the Gnex

Dmb1517

The ICS keyboard, especially in landscape, is excellent. This is coming from an OG Droid guy. Most mistakes, even forgetting the space bar, are fixed. Give it a try in a store sometime.

Anonymous

keyboards are only for precision typing like when it comes to websites, usernames, and passwords. Or if you happen to do a lot of professional typeups for emails or reports thru your phone, then definitely get the Slider. If it’s an issue of high volume texting, SWYPE would be faster, or even swiftkey X.

I’ve been stubborn to a keypad from the D1 to the D3 but recently I’ve realized Im just faster on swype.
and as amazing as the keypad on the slider has gotten on the D3, you dont want to wear out the physical pad too much if you dont have to.

TC Infantino

I thought the same thing, because I used the physical keyboard on my OG all the time. Not so much for texting as for emails and forums and such, so I thought I would have to wait until the Droid 4 came out before I would upgrade. Then I played with the Rezound in the store, and liked it so much that I got it a couple of days later. The Droid 3’s keyboard is good, and they say that the 4’s keyboard will be even better, but typing on the on-screen keyboard of the Rezound with Swiftkey X is just increadible.

Steve Hadlick

If u ask VZW they will tell you it will come out when its ready and then follow it up with a release 12 hours later

Dominick DeVito

true but even with the nexus we pretty much had confirmation the day before….today we have nothing….

Anonymous

sorry evil twin (really more like obsessed stalker fan) of mine. No D4 for you

My OG ran Gingerbread for a long while with no issues. It’s still a good enough phone to use as an everyday device. It’s the reason I actually kept for for a full two years despite having two available upgrades sitting on my account for the past year.

Anonymous

The other reason would have to be that devs keep showing it love; all the way up to ICS apparently =)!

Keith Sumner

Actually if you mess around with compchache, virtual ram, and allow purging of assets the og DROID running gingerbread ran smoothly with no lag and no redraws.

Anonymous

I agree. A good stress test was trying to use Navigation while streaming bluetooth music. Either or would quit out to free up RAM. Could never do both reliably. And don’t even get me started on how long it took to load the home screen after exiting the browser.

Anonymous

My Droid just couldn’t do this and then get a call with out heat problems and lagging no matter what ROM I was on. Can’t wait to di it on the GNex

Anonymous

It is truly amazing just how much love this one device receives. Fragmentation my a** =o!!!